With Strong's hire, UT peels away prejudice a layer at a time

AUSTIN - This world - the college football world in Texas - has changed. And changed forever.

The University of Texas introduced Charles Rene Strong as the school's head football coach Monday, and as school president Bill Powers said, it was a "wonderful day" and a "historic day" for the university.

After 120 years and 28 other head coaches, Texas hired a black head football coach. That is significant.

Why? Because Texas, like so many other schools in the country, has a long history of prejudice, discrimination and racism.

When Strong was born (1960), there was not a black athlete at Texas, not one black faculty member and certainly not a football coach. (Oh yeah, football coaches hold a higher rank on the Forty Acres than professors, and they are paid more.)

Many of the most powerful boosters at UT, the men with the money to strongly influence hiring and firing, attended an all-white school. The good old days for them didn't include men who looked like Charlie Strong.

They are from a different time. An old world. The past.

Perhaps that is why San Antonio billionaire and UT donor Red McCombs made absurd comments on KZDC-AM in San Antonio on Monday.

McCombs, who wanted the Longhorns to convince Jon Gruden to come out of retirement to take the job, said Strong isn't qualified to be a head football coach.

"I don't have any doubt Charlie is a fine coach," McCombs told station co-hosts Dat Nguyen and Jason Minnix. "I think he'd probably make a fine position coach, maybe a coordinator."

McCombs is talking about a man whose Louisville squad had a 23-3 record the last two years, including a win over Florida in a BCS bowl, the Sugar Bowl, last year and a victory over Miami in a bowl this season.

He's talking about a man who won three bowls in four seasons at a school that had won six bowls in 100 years prior to his arrival.

He's talking about a 53-year-old man who was the defensive coordinator on two national championship teams at Florida.

He's talking about a man who developed a quarterback who could well be the Texans' choice at No. 1 overall in the NFL draft this spring.

Yet McCombs, who was in his 40s before a black player took the football field in a Longhorns uniform, says Strong isn't qualified to be a head coach? And maybe he could be a coordinator?

It would be funny were it not so sad.

Strong, an Arkansas native, has heard this type of thing before. It has frustrated him but never stopped him. He believes the world has changed.

Changing world

"Oh, it has changed dramatically, and that's what happens," said Strong, the head coach at Louisville the past four years. "College football is changing, and everybody's welcoming change, and they should."

Well, not everybody. Good thing new UT athletic director Steve Patterson brought out the welcome mat.

Like Texas A&M's hiring of Kevin Sumlin two years ago, this hire was a long time coming.

In the past couple of days, I've received email from readers young and old, black and white, UT alums and haters, who recognize the significance of this hire.

Alfio Randall-Veasey, who played at UT under Mack Brown, sent me a message just after Monday's news conference saying he was in tears because Texas had hired a black man for its highest-profile position.

If race were not a factor, Strong would not have toiled as an assistant for 27 years before finally getting a head coaching opportunity, despite long ago having proved to be a superb coach.

If people didn't notice his skin color, the GIFs floating around the Internet, including one with Strong's likeness substituted for Sheriff Bart in "Blazing Saddles," would have a different tone.

Were Strong not black, the Dallas Morning News wouldn't have grabbed a Lou Holtz quote from four years ago and used it to title a slideshow on its website listing the 10 reasons Strong is NOT a "hip hop coach."

Strong is not a hip hop coach. He is a football coach. (Ask him, and he'll remind you. Forcefully.)

But we do know why that is an issue, don't we?

Kliff Kingsbury might be the most hip hop coach in the country, and he is celebrated for being cool like that - or like dat, as the hip-hoppers say - yet the label didn't hurt him much. Kingsbury, 34, spent 22 fewer years as an assistant coach than Strong before he was hired as a head coach.

Progressive hires

Texas Tech made a good decision to grab Kingsbury. A bunch of schools made poor choices in ignoring Strong for so long.

Not long ago, and if it continued to listen to people like McCombs, UT would have been one of them.

See, in some people's world, Strong doesn't look like a head football coach.

There will always be some who don't feel as comfortable around Strong as they would a white coach. Of course, they will be more comfortable with him if he wins.

Skin color has nothing to do with winning or losing.

As is the case with Sumlin, some will not support Strong for the wrong reason. Some, both white and black, will always be bothered that his wife is white. That group is the minority.

Sumlin and Strong are at places a good coach can - in fact, should - succeed. No excuses. They don't give any or accept any. They are two of the best at what they do at the best the state has to offer. Perhaps, hopefully soon, their teams will meet on the football field.

When that happens, race will have nothing to do with which team wins. It had nothing to do with either of them being hired, and thankfully, it didn't prevent it either.

"Lot of times, people look at (me) just being the minority," Strong said. "I'm just a football coach, a football coach directing young people's lives, and I want to change lives."

That he has helped change the world, and some closed minds, is just part of it.

Listen to "The Rush" with Jerome Solomon and Dave Tepper from noon-2 p.m. weekdays on 97.5 FM.

Jerome grew up in downtown Acres Homes, Texas. He is a proud graduate of Mabel B. Wesley Elementary and was a basketball team captain at Waltrip High School, where he helped the Mighty Rams to a near-.500 record.

A math genius and engineering major in college, he's still working on this writing thing. He says that the three years he spent as an F.M. Black Panther probably played a more significant a role in the man he would become than the time he spent in college.

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